HCSS is pleased to announce that Saskia van Genugten will be joining us as Strategic Advisor on MENA security.
Saskia currently serves as Associate Director at MacroScope Strategies, a boutique consultancy focused on Europe-Arabian Gulf relations. Previously, she worked as Strategy and Policy Advisor at the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. From 2015-2018, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, where she led a research program on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), as well as an initiative focusing on stabilization efforts in the MENA region. Before that time, she served as a Manager in the Government and Public Sector Advisory arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and as a staff member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Development Cooperation of the Senate of the Netherlands.
Her main research interest is in security and defence developments in the MENA region and the Gulf. She has an extensive publications track-record in international affairs related issues, both in Europe and the Middle East.
She is the author of Libya in Western foreign policies, 1911-2011 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), as well as co-editor of L’Africa mediterranea, Storia e futuro (Donzelli, 2011) and of Stabilizing the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: Regional Actors and New Approaches (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).
Saskia holds a PhD in European and Middle East Studies from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), an MA in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), an MA in the History of International relations and a BA in Italian Literature from Utrecht University. She also holds professional certificates in Decision Making (Yale) and in Multi-Stakeholder Strategies (TU Delft).
“Textbooks on the Middle East – and the GCC countries in particular – tend to be outdated by the time they get published. The region is changing rapidly and is reinventing itself in various ways. The old stereotypes are no longer valid and I think few in Europe are aware of the dynamics, the diversity and the ambitions. In my view, this region deserves a lot more nuance than it is currently granted.”
Saskia van Genugten
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